A Statement of Defence and Last Words before a Sentence in Prison

Защитительная речь и последнее слово Ф В Маховицкого

28.11.1966

(A statement of defence and last words of Fedor Vladimerovich Makhovitskiy)

(English Translation is right after the Russian)

Суд над баптистом, Ф В Маховицким проходил в Ленинграде По статье 142 УК РСФСР (за нарушение закона об отделении церкви от государства) Ма-ховицкий был приговорен к 2 годам лагерей общего режима и 1 году принудительной работы на заводе с удержанием 20 % заработной платы — Ред.

Защитительная речь

Граждане судьи и все слушатели, я имею честь предстать перед судом не как преступник, а как христианин, исповедующий Имя Иисуса Христа пред людьми.

Я верю в Бога, это право дано мне самим Богом.

Это право дано мне и законами нашей страны Но законы эти попираются сегодня людьми, которые хотят уничтожить церковь.

Если закон об отделении церкви от государства остается в силе, то почему мы, христиане, не можем свободно, без вмешательства извне, проводить наши богослужения' Почему мы в нашей деятельности внутрицерковной жизни не можем решить вопроса свободных выборов на пост пресвитера или быть самому избранному на это служение? Вы меня сегодня судите, как пресвитера.

Мы не за тайное проведение богослужений, нет. Мы неоднократно обращались в органы власти с вопросом о регистрации, но ответа до сих пор нет. Поэтому мы выдуждены были собираться где придется и, в частности, в районе остановки «Привал», это далеко от дороги и от населенного пункта. Мы никак не могли нарушить там общественный порядок, там не перед кем его нарушать.

Но вы хотите, чтобы мы вообще не проводили наших богослужений. А мы этого сделать не можем.

По поводу 30 мая, в чем ныне обвиняют меня. Нам тогда не только мешали проводить богослужение, но и забрали нашего брата Кисина. Почему одного забрали? Надо было забрать всех. Все были на собрании, все молились, значит все одинаково «виновны», в том числе и я. Я тоже молился вместе со всеми. Поэтому мы и решили все пойти в отделение милиции, когда забрали одного брата. Мы руководствовались словами Иисуса Христа: «Нет больше той любви, как если кто положит душу свою за друзей своих». Там мы и спели наш гимн. Я этого не отрицаю.

В обвинение мне ставится также происшествие 3 октября. В этот день у нас отмечался праздник жатвы, то есть день, в который мы, христиане, благодарим Бога за те плоды, которые произрастила земля. Но нам решили помешать и в этом служении. Приехавшие устроили шум, дикие крики, свои пения, включили громкоговорители. В такой обстановке мы не могли проводить служение и решили перейти в другое место. Мы встали и пошли с пением. Если бы нам не мешали проводить наше богослужение, то мы бы ушли оттуда так же незаметно, как и пришли.

Когда прибыл усиленный наряд милиции, они сделали свое дело, взяв некоторых наших друзей, в том числе и меня, за это я отсидел 15 суток.

Но главное, в чем вы меня хотите сегодня обвинить, это в распространении документов, изданных Советом Церквей. Но никто здесь не мог доказать это. Из показаний свидетелей видно, что я распространением литературы не занимался. То, что у меня при обыске была найдена литература, это не говорит о том, что я занимался ее распространением. Как верующий, я имею право читать и получать религиозную литературу. Литература Совета Церквей религиозная, есть среди документов Совета Церквей и информационные материалы по вопросам церковной жизни.

Вы меня упрекаете в неповиновении высшим властям. По гражданской линии я нигде и ни в чем не нарушал законов. Что же касается моей духовной жизни, то должно повиноваться больше Богу, нежели человеку.

Виновным я себя не признаю. У меня всё.

Защитительная речь брата Маховицкого неоднократно прерывалась судьей.

Затем было предоставлено Маховицкому последнее слово…

Последнее слово

Я еще раз благодарю Бога, что могу предстоять пред судом за Имя Его.

Судья: (прерывая): Мы не позволим вам говорить здесь проповедь.

Брат Маховицкий был лишен последнего слова, и суд удалился на совещание.

Translation by Bing

A statement in defence and last words in Mahovitskiy's (Baptist) trial was on 28.11.1966.  It was held in Leningrad (Now St. Petersburg), under article 142 of the CRIMINAL CODE of the RSFSR (for violation of the law on the separation of Church and State) Mahovitskiy was sentenced to 2 years in a minimum-security camps and 1 year of forced labor at a factory in retaining 20% of the wages earned.

A Statement in Defence

Citizens, Judge and all the listeners, I have the honor to appear before the Court, not as a criminal but as a Christian who professes the name of Jesus Christ before men.

I believe in God, it is the right given to me by God.

This right is given to me and the laws of our country, but these laws are violated today by people who want to destroy the Church.

If the law on the separation of Church and State remains in force, then why are we Christians cannot freely, without external interference, conduct our worship ' why are we in our church life cannot solve the issue of free elections of the pastor or be elected to this Ministry? You can judge me today as a pastor.

We are not a secret holding church services. We have repeatedly appealed to the authorities regarding the registration, but the answer is still no. So we were forced to gather anywhere we could, and in particular in the area of "Prival", this is far from the road and from the village. We could not disrupt public order there since there is no one to violate.

But you want us to not have our worship. But we can't do that.

On 30th of May, which is what you are now accusing me for, our service was not only interrupted, but our brother Kissin was taken away. Why take only one of us? Why not pick up all? All were at the meeting, all prayed, then all equally "guilty", including myself. I also prayed along with everyone else. Therefore, we decided to all go to the police Department, where one brother was taken away. We were guided by the words of Jesus Christ: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends". There we sang our hymn. I do not deny.

I am also being convicted for an accident on the 3rd of October. On this day we celebrated the harvest holiday, a day in which we Christians give thanks to God for those fruits which the Earth produced. But they decided to stop this Ministry. They made a noise of wild shrieks, they started singing loudly with a loud speaker. In this situation we could not continue with our service and decided to move to another location. We got up and went while continuing to sing. If they would not interrupt this service, we would have gone from there just as discreetly as we came.

When the police patrol arrived, they've done their job by taking some of our friends, including me, for this I was imprisoned for 15 days.

But most importantly, you make me want to blame today is in the dissemination of documents issued by the Council of churches. But nobody here could prove it. From the testimony of witnesses I was not engaged in any distribution of literature. What they found during a search of the literature, this is not to say that I did it. As a believer, I have the right to read and receive religious literature. Council of churches, religious literature is among the documents of the Council of churches and information materials on the life of the Church.

You charge me with the disobedience of higher authorities. As far as the that, I am not guilty of breaking any laws. As for my spiritual life, we must obey God rather than man.

I myself do not admit that I am guilt. I am done.

Defensive speech of brother Mahovitskiy was repeatedly interrupted by the judge.

Then Mahovickomu was given the last word ...

The last word

Once again, I thank God that I can stand before the Court for His name.

Judge: (interrupting): we will not let you preach here!

Brother Mahovitskiy was denied the last word, and the Court left to the meeting. (Translated by Bing)

God is in Control!

This whole entire school year, I could not wait for summer to begin.  This summer, I thought, I was not going to be busy with teaching Summer school, Russian school, my school, helping my husband with school, or any other thing that would take me away from family.  This summer was going to be different!  I was going to take a break from all the busyness of life and focus on spending time with family, kids, husband, and have some time to myself.  For the first time, my husband and I actually pulled out a calendar and plotted out a schedule for the entire summer.  We wanted to go to Disneyland with kids.  We wanted to go to the beach at least a couple of times this summer.  We planned our trip to Seattle for my brother's wedding and how we were going to go to Canada while we were there with my parents watching our kids for a couple of days.  We even planned another quick getaway to Las Vegas one weekend.  This was the first time we were going to not waste any of our free summer time together, but really enjoy it and make every day count.  It was a great plan, or so we thought...until yesterday afternoon.

My oldest two daughters were taking turns riding their bike back and forth in front of our house.  As my daughter Yana was taking her turn, she noticed a car coming down the street and wanted to turn away a little, but accidentally turned too much and fell to the ground screaming.  I was in the shower at the time, while my husband was outside.  He ran over, picked her up, and carried her home thinking she just had a couple of scratches.  However, she had absolutely no scratches but kept crying histerically.  When I came down stairs, I put ice on her and told her to try to fall asleep, hoping the pain would go away.  She fell asleep and woke up telling me she felt better, but as soon as she tried to move her leg, she started crying again.  I was not sure what to think of it still thinking it is no big deal since there were no visible signs that anything could be broken, no bruises, no swelling, no scratches, nothing.  Everything looked absolutely normal.  However, since she would not stop crying, I decided to call the doctor.  They told me to go to ER right away because even though nothing is visible, it could still be a break.  So my husband took her in.  And what do you know?  Indeed a break, even two in her lower leg bone.
 

Of course the ER experience was not pleasant because as my husband was telling me, the doctors confused the order twice.  They first ordered an X-Ray on the wrong leg not seeing anything.  Then they ordered it on a knee trying to X-Ray a knee.  Kaiser....I tell you!  The whole thing is taking hours while the child is in pain.  Doctors or nurses make mistakes, but then have to wait for another order, another nurse, another hour....so poor Yanochka had to go through all this pain while the doctors and X-Ray Techs were trying to figure out what to take pictures of.  Finally, we had a picture!  And yes, it was a definite break!  Ouch!

Three years ago Yana broke her clavicle and now this...  I have never had a broken bone and cannot even imagine what the pain would be like.  Never mind the pain, what about the healing process?  Doctors said 6-8 weeks of healing with weekly X-Rays and who knows? We just pray and hope that after 8 weeks that will be the end of it and the bone will heal correctly.  So what that means is that for the next two months, Yana would need to stay in one place day after day.  She needs to be carried to the bathroom every few hours.  She needs to be repositioned every now and then because she is scared to move.  I just hope that as the pain begins to lessen, she will learn to move about herself.  So there go our plans...Disneyland?  We still want to go.  Vadim already got a vacation.  But now we have a baby in a stroller- Sofia.  Lilly will probably need a stroller and now Yana in a wheelchair?  Not sure how that will work...but we are hopeful!  We will see how things go! Now the beach?  What are we going to do about that?  She will have to be carried and sit on the sand the whole time...no playing in the water...no playing in the sand....the cast will get all sandy.  Not sure how that will work yet, but again....we so wanted to go to the beach!  How about out little getaway?  Oh boy, we will have to put that on hold, who's going to want to watch her in this condition?  That's right...no one!  So what's next, the wedding in Seattle?  This trip we were planning since Christmas!  This will be the hardest I think...Driving in her position...getting her in and out? The worst part is that she won't be able to be the flower girl....She never had that opportunity ever and now she might never have one.  She and all the cousins were supposed to walk down the isle and throw petals.  So all my girls were supposed to do that and now Yana will be so sad...and so will I. 

So what now?  Yesterday after finding out about the cast and realizing how different our summer was really going to be, I broke down.  I prayed and asked God why did that have to happen now?  Why? Why? Why?  We did not plan for this!! We did not want this summer to be this way!  This was going to be the first summer free of "other" business, just for us!  I prayed asking God to give me the strength to get through this! After my sobbing prayer, I got up, went to my Facebook page and read a verse I just posted a couple hours prior which said,

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isa. 41:10. 

I read it over and over again and felt a surge of strength and power fill me.  My tears dried up and I got up knowing full well that God was in control!  He stands behind this whole incident!  He is God and He is Good!  I know he will get us through this experience!  He just wants us to learn that He is in control, not we!!!

I have a blog!!!

I am taking an online class this summer to learn how to teach using the latest technologies out there.  And wow!!! I am absolutely amazed at the fact that I am so unaware of so many of them.  As an educator, I need to keep up with what is happening out there in the online world or else lose the connection with my students.  Most of my students these days have an iphone or a blackberry and that's in 7th grade!!  When it comes to online technologies, they might know more than me and that can never be good, so I am using my summer to learn.  It is just mindboggling how much is really out there and I am so behind....This class is forcing me to get out of my comfort zone and learn to navigate the web a little better.  So here I am learning how to blog.  Never thought I would do something like this.  I saw others do it, but was very hesitant about doing it myself.  It just seems a little frightning to know that people will actually read or could read my writing.  Though I love to write!!!  It has always been my passion!  I was just never comfortable with sharing it, but blogging will help me overcome this.  So here goes my first post!!

What freedom does America want? Freedom to worship God or ban God?

            I have often heard this phrase “America is a free country,” but have never really understood what it really meant. My family moved to this country from former Soviet Union in search of a better life.  This better life we were looking for included having freedom from government control, which was destructive for Christians during the communist years.  Christians were persecuted because they refused to worship this man-made god, Lenin, a dictator at the time.  They refused to recite the pledges and wear the symbols that represented allegiance to Lenin.  Upon graduating from High School, Russian people had to join the communistic party in order to have success in life.  Because Christians refused to take part of any of these observances, they were not allowed to continue higher education, nor were they able to get a good-paying job.  This was why my parents moved to America.  They wanted their children to have a better life, to get higher education, and work in good paying jobs.  Above all, they wanted to live in a free country where they would not be persecuted for their religion. Though many of these things became realities upon arrival to the new country, American did not turn out to be as “free” as my family perceived it to be.  When I started school, I quickly realized that this country is not so much different than the former Soviet Union.  Even though it is a democratic country, it does not completely exercise its freedoms the way it originally intended when this country was founded.  It started out as a country founded on God, where the church and state were married and all components of society were under the guidance of God.  However, these freedoms have disappeared from our country with the separation of church and state leading to a non-Christian atmosphere in schools and workplaces.  As awkward as it may seem, but it appears that America has shifted backwards to what it originally escaped.  It started out as a free country worshiping God in all aspects of society and ended up as a free country banning God from every aspect of society including educational settings, work organizations, and media. 

            The educational setting provides one vivid example of how America has transitioned from being godly to godless.  If you look at the history of our country, the founding fathers have instituted prayer and Bible reading in schools in the 1620s (GonzoII, 2009).  They started out teaching their children the letters of the alphabet by using verses from the Bible.  Prayer was a fundamental principal of school life as well as other aspects of society.  This continued for another 300 hundred years or so until some began to question these ideals.  In 1954, the country felt it needed to add the phrase “under God” to the pledge of allegiance because it might have felt a threat toward Christianity (Robinson, 2002).  However, it was not enough.  As more people flooded into the country with opposing religious viewpoints, this Godly country slowly started passing laws to take away God from schools.  In 1962, Supreme Court ruled that children could no longer recite a school prayer in school (GonzoII, 2009).  Then in 1980, Supreme Court ruled the Ten Commandments could no longer be posted in the classrooms in fear that children might obey them (GonzoII, 2009).  All these attempts to take God out of public schools have only caused problems.  The same year of the Ten Commandment removal, the U.S. schools reported “its lowest S.A.T. scores ever, after 18 straight years of decline after 1962 ban on school prayer” (GonzoII, 2009).  This was only the beginning for the decline that was to come.  Schools now struggle to keep kids from dropping out.  Not only that, but they struggle to keep kids from drug and alcohol abuse, gangs, and teenage pregnancies.  Not to mention that the achievement gap keeps getting wider.  The godless state of this country only created more problems for educational settings even though some might believe otherwise.  Annie Laurie Gaylor, for example, speaks against school prayer in an article called “The Case against School Prayer” saying, “One might just as well credit the lack of prayer with the great advances that have taken place since the 1962 and 1963 decisions on prayer.  Look at the leap in civil liberties, equality, environmental awareness, women’s rights, science, technology, and medicine!” (Gaylor, p. 681).  Though this might be a legitimate argument; however, most of these advancements have only made our country weaker.  There was a reason why God placed a man in charge and the woman a homemaker.  So all these advancements toward equality and women’s rights movements have only put more burdens on the women and created generations of children growing up with no parents.  Nevertheless, not all is lost because schools today still continue to have the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance that is being recited every day.  Maybe that is the reason why education system still manages to send kids to college and attempts to raise test scores.  It is mindboggling to imagine what could happen if that phrase will one day be removed.   

            Unfortunately, education is not the only entity that is suffering with the absence of God.  Most organizations in America do not function on the basis of Christianity.  Just consider some of the major corporations and whether their primary focus is to honor God.  Take health care for example with their advance use of technologies to change people’s bodies, choose baby gender, and conduct abortions in manners unprecedented to humanity, thus playing God.  Do these practitioners consider what God thinks of their conduct and do they do it by the will of God?   Absolutely not!  On the contrary, health care and every other institution in America have gotten away from seeking God.  Almost all workplaces have eliminated anything that would promote any type of controversy when it comes to religion.  The argument for this always comes down to the fact that this country is a free country and should allow everyone to practice their own religion freely.  Though this is the case and this is a free country, people forget the reason what the founders of this country fought for.  They shed blood so that people can worship God freely, a God that is the creator of this world, a God that sent his son Jesus to die on the cross so that people could be right with God, a God that will one day judge all people regardless whether they believed in him or not.   That is the God upon which this country was founded, not Allah, not Buddha, not Virgin Mary.  Why do people think this country was so prosperous and successful for so many years?  There is only one explanation for that, which is found in the Bible on numerous occasions.  Genesis 39:3 states when talking about Joseph in Egypt, “His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made everything he did successful” (LASB, p. 74).  Could it be that the economic state of this country could be accounted to the fact that this country is becoming more and more ungodly?  

            Not just the school setting, nor the public institutions, but above all the media portrays and even promotes ungodliness in America.  More and more movies come out with the RR rating.  Not only that, but the movies that are rated G, which are supposed to be free of corruption and inappropriate images and language, are becoming more and more inappropriate for kids.  Just the other day, we took a few kids to the movies for one of our daughter’s birthday parties.  The movie was rated G, but I could not stop thinking about some of the images that were in that movie including half-naked women dancing in a casino setting.  This was a G-rated movie!  I will not even mention the PG or the PG-13 movies because if a G-rated movie is that corrupted, the next ratings could only get worse.  How many Christian movies actually come out in movie theaters?  Maybe one movie per year or less and even then that movie has to have some corrupted components of sex and violence or else it does not get a good audience.  Beyond the movie industry, the television has also moved away from family shows portraying a family with a mom and dad to gay and lesbian families.  Every show or movie these days must have someone who is gay, or else that show or movie will not succeed.  This is not to mention what is seen in the magazines nowadays.  Nobody ever talks about God, but rather who had the next affair, who had the next plastic surgery, or who turned gay recently.  What happened to a country founded on God?  It has completely turned into a godless country, especially when it comes to media.    

            So what are the implications of all this?  Will this country completely destroy itself?  This might very much be the case for America if it continues to deny the existence and supremacy of God.  Americans should look at the history of Israel as an example and learn from it because whatever happened to them with their unwillingness to follow God will happen to America in years to come.  Jeremiah 25:8-11 says, “Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: ‘Because you have not listened to my words…I will completely destroy them and make them an object or horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin” (LASB, p. 1234).  All those things happened to Israel and will happen to America as it continues on this godless path.  This is when people like Annie Gaylor will have to grow silent with her ideas about how “We know from history how harmful and destructive religion is in our public schools” (p. 679) and realize that what was destructive was not religion or prayer, but the denial of God.  America needs to wake up and bring God back to schools, organizations, and media or it will face destruction it has never seen before!  It needs to bring back the true freedom where people are free to worship a real God and be truly free from the devil’s snares.  Above all, America needs to be free from the wrath of God and the only way to do that is to turn back to God.  A recent church billboard said, “We hide from God by hiding in God.”  That is exactly what America needs to do!       

      

Bibliography

Gaylor, A. L. The case against school prayer.  Elements of Argument: A text and reader. 

Boston, NY:  Bedford/St. Martin’s.

GonzoII.  (2009).  An outline history of religion in American schools. Free Republic. 

www.freerepublic.com.

Life Application Study Bible: New International Version. 2005. Carol Steam, IL & Grand

Rapids, MI: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. & Zondervan.

Robinson, B. A. (2002). The U.S. pledge of allegiance: Background information.  Religious

Tolerance. www.religioustolerance.org.

Fallen Nature is the Source of All Evil

         We live in a fallen world and no matter how much we try to be good, our physical nature and the nature of this physical world will always gravitate toward the bad, toward the rotten, toward the evil.  However, it was not always the case.  When God created the world, he made everything good.  Genesis Chapter One records six occasions when God sees the world as good:  verses 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 (Life Application Study Bible (LASB), pp. 5-7).  Interestingly enough, there were six days during which God was creating and six times the mention of “good.”  So everything God created was good, including the humans, after whom he says, “very good” (v. 31).  Evil came when Adam and Eve, the first people on earth, had sinned by being disobedient to God as recorded in Genesis 3.  They listened to the serpent that deceived them by questioning God’s command not to eat of the forbidden tree (LASB, p. 10).  When that happened, God punished the man, the woman, and cursed the serpent and the ground.  To the man God said, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground” (LASB, p. 12).  God punished the man with hard physical labor involving land that is cursed with “thorns and thistles” which would make the work even more difficult.  To the woman God said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (LASB, p. 11).  God punished the woman by increasing her pains in labor and being dominated by man.  To the serpent God said, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (LASB, p. 11).  God cursed the serpent by taking away his legs.  It is important to note that God did not curse the man or the woman, but only the serpent and the land.  Because of these curses, humanity, though not cursed, lives in a cursed world with a cursed ruler, the Devil, as a result of punishment.  This is why no matter how hard people try to be good, it is impossible to do so without God.  When it comes to sex and violence in our culture today, the same could be said.  Because we live in a fallen world in a fallen nature, we naturally gravitate toward evil even though our conscious tells us to do the opposite, that is if we still have a conscious.  Apostle Paul in Romans Chapter 7 verse 15 describes this phenomenon by saying, “I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (LASB, p. 1893).  This reinforces the idea that our natural self is always drawn toward the evil.  So when it comes to the prevalence of sex and violence in our society, it is not a matter of finding the source of influence that causes it, but rather finding the source that is able to overpower it.  Instead of blaming technological advances such as television, movies, or the Internet for influencing the amount of sex and violence in our society, it is important to understand that fallen nature is the number one reason why sex and violence is so prevalent throughout the world.  

            One of the main reasons why we should not blame technology for the pervasiveness of sex and violence in our society is because it existed even before the technology age.  This is evident from the very beginning of time when the first people Adam and Eve had their first children, Abel and Cain.  These two brothers had no television or violent video games around, nor did they have access to the Internet to learn how to be violent.  However for some reason, Cain killed his brother Abel as recorded in Genesis 4:8 (LASB, p. 13).  He did not even kill him for a good reason, but only because of anger that was linked to jealousy.  Genesis 4:4 states, “In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.  But Able brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.  The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.  So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast” (LASB, p. 12).  In other words, Cain was jealous that God accepted Abel’s offering and not his, which lead to anger and then to murder.  So it is obvious that this violent behavior did not come from any outside source, but rather Cain’s heart.  He bore jealousy and anger in his heart, which lead him to murdering his own brother.  On the same note, sexual immorality was also prevalent in those times as recorded in Genesis 19:5 where the people of Sodom and Gomorrah tried to have sex with the Angels that came to rescue Lot and his family.  They said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them” (LASB, p. 36).  Did these people watch too much television or played to many violent video games that they learned about homosexuality and rape?  No, these men were sexually immoral because of their fallen and sinful nature.  So according to the Bible, it is obvious that evil comes from the heart, not from any outside source.

            Richard Rhodes in his article “Hollow Claims about Fantasy Violence” supports the notion that there is no direct link between exposure to violence on television and human violent behavior (p. 555).  He uses a number of examples from history to support his point including the fact that in South Africa, though television was banned until 1975, the “white homicide rates remained stable” (Rhodes, p. 556).  He also goes on to say that the same thing happened in other countries.  He states, “Homicide rates in France, Germany, Italy, and Japan either failed to change with increasing television ownership in the same period or actually declined, and American homicide rates have more recently been sharply declining despite a proliferation of popular media outlets – not only movies and television, but also video games and the Internet” (Rhodes, p. 556).  There are many other examples in our history where it is evident that violence has only decreased with the increased amount of media.    

            Nonetheless, does that mean that what happens around the world does not influence evil behavior?  Of course not!  Rhodes states, “But violence isn’t learned from mock violence.  There is good evidence – casual evidence, not correlational - that it’s learned in personal violent encounters, beginning with the brutalization of children by their parents or their peers” (p. 557).   What this means is that even though media has almost no effect on evil behavior, at least not a proven effect, there are other outside influences that can encourage or promote violent or immoral behavior.  For instance, people that lived in Sodom and Gomorra probably did not all start out that way, but because of how forceful others were with their immorality, it was impossible for people not to give in.  Even Lot was about to give his daughters to these immoral people in order to protect the Angels.  Genesis 19:8 says, “Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.  But don’t do anything to these, men, for they have come under the protection of my roof” (LASB, p. 36).  So even though evil does not begin with the outside force, it may be encouraged through an outside source.  According to Rebecca L. Collins et al., who has summarized RAND Health research, “Youth who viewed the greatest amounts of sexual content were two times more likely than those who viewed the smallest amount to initiate sexual intercourse during the following year or to progress to more-advanced levels of other sexual activity” (p. 543).  However, besides television, the RAND study identified other factors that could possibly contribute to increases sexual behavior in teens such as “being older, having older friends, getting lower grades, engaging in rule-breaking such as skipping class, and sensation-seeking” (Collins, p. 543).  Thus, even though the evil behavior may initiate in the heart, the outside influence can promote it if people are not strong enough to withstand the pressures.

            So what does all this mean for us as a society?  Does that mean we should let our children watch violent movies and play violent video games?  Should we allow them to watch sexual scenery in movies or Internet?  Absolutely not!  Even though, there is very little evidence that media influences or increases evil behavior, we should not be the ones to say that it is okay by allowing them to be exposed to it.  It is our job as parents to protect our children from such immorality, not that we can completely protect them from it, but we can at least be role models in ways that will show our children that those behaviors are not acceptable.  Moreover, we need to teach our children that we live in a fallen world and that all people by nature are sinners in need of a Savior.  Unless people repent of their sins and surrender their lives to Jesus, they will be powerless in controlling their evil behaviors.  This is not to say that they cannot try, but all their effort will fail because only through Jesus we have power over sin. 

Bibliography

Collins, R. L. et al. Does watching sex on television influence teens’ sexual activity? Elements of

argument: a text and reader.  Boston, NY:  Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Life Application Study Bible: New International Version. 2005. Carol Steam, IL & Grand

Rapids, MI: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. & Zondervan.

Rhodes, R.  Hollow claims about fantasy violence. Elements of argument: a text and reader. 

Boston, NY:  Bedford/St. Martin’s.